Three Gentlemen of Time
by Enigmatic Insignia
Summary: ' Though the stranger was obviously short of breath, he forced himself to speak. "You've saved me oft enough. Surely, I've earned death…" "You earned freezing in a snowbank?" ' The 11th Doctor discovers a time loop forming in 1888 London, and with it, a potential wrench in history and supposed fiction alike. Pre-series partial AU for Penny Dreadful. Rating will change.


February 25, 1890

The land was the type of white where the clouds and snow had merged ground and sky into a single, shining being. The few stagnant structures, most of them rocks, were coated with ice that would have been dripping had it a choice in the matter. It was a scene of often paralleled but never replicated beauty. Moments ago, the landscape had been completely untouched. At this exact second, however, a beacon was shining from the top of a certain blue box.

"Stubborn. Always stubborn. You do have a thing for scenery, don't you? Almost picturesque, if it's for white in the dictionary," the Doctor spoke to his console, still fairly enthusiastic or at least feigning it well. It had been months since he had left the Ponds in New York. Since then, he'd had more silence than he was willing to admit to. Thankfully, he had little trouble dismissing the issue. After all, there was no one here to ask him but his sexy box and the open sky, neither of which were known for their conversational prowess.

He snapped his fingers as he strode towards the soon-to-be open doors. They parted in unison with his approach, revealing the view in full. The cold smacked him so badly that he stumbled right back, his face red and dusted with snowflakes, but demeanor seemingly untouched. He turned to face the interior once more.

"Now when were we? The eighteen hundreds, Switzerland? What happened to Greece? Outside of cars, school plays and fast food…" The reflection of the exterior showed on the screen along with a small scroll of data reflecting the location. At second glance, it had still looked like a blank screen.

It was a good thing, then, that he'd taken a third.

On the far right corner of the screen, a single pixel dressed in black was moving down the mountain. The Doctor paused in observation, trying to spot the spot's distinguishing features, if any. Slowly, it crept closer, barely budging, but consistently there.

The Doctor turned towards the doors once more. He sprinted towards the exit and marched straight into the wall of snow. The drift crunched in protest. His feet sank through the snow, then his leg, all the way to his knee. The contact sent a chill through his chest.

"Whoa. Quick-snow. Or it would be if that were a thing…" he shook his head and the rest of himself to dismiss the feeling, steadied his hand on the door frame and continued on.

Whatever it was out there, the Doctor could hear it moving. It was moving at the exact opposite diagonal, towards him, and much too slowly for it to be a viable threat. He cupped a hand against the side of his face and called into the distance. "Hello, person! I presume you're a person. You seem to be person shaped, albeit very, very tiny!" his voice boomed across the bay so loudly, he really should have considered the echo.

In spite of the intensity of that sound, the world remained still. The speck came to a pause. It rose briefly, transforming from a speck to a line and then into nothing as it disappeared in white. "Wait, no! No, don't rush. There's a pretty finite list of places to go, here, and they aren't that renowned for hospitality!" the Doctor shouted towards the stranger. Again, unsurprisingly due to the distance, there was no reply.

Undeterred, the Doctor sprinted across the snow, kicking up a new wave with each passing step. It was a miracle that he didn't start an avalanche when he sprinted towards the increasingly visible being.

As the Doctor had suspected, the blip was a person. A young man clad in black and gray had collapsed face-first into a snowbank. His arms were sprawled out, his neck faintly blue and his jacket thin, clearly not intended for the cold. The Doctor knelt down beside the stranger. He reached for his wrist to check for a pulse. The man's fingertips had shrunk and discolored to a deep brown with frostbite, and his face's deathly pallor was hardly better.

"Sir? Are you—?" Before he could finish the question, he noticed the man's chest was rising in a struggle to breathe. The Doctor gave him a pat on the shoulder, brushing aside another tuft of snow in the process, while he helped him to his feet. "Great. Yes. Huff puff. Just, keep on doing that. We'll get you sorted soon. And well, too. No hats involved," he tried to assure him.

The stranger hung limply at the Doctor's side, his limbs swaying with such a lack of coordination, it was as if they couldn't support half their weight. Still, the Doctor could feel this stranger's pulse press through his hands, beckoning him to keep on moving. The drive was so strong, he could have sworn he heard that stranger's voice calling to him, hardly conscious, but there.

"Doctor?"

"A or the, preferring the. Either way, yes. Active and passive tense, add an ing, whatever I can do to help."

It wasn't until he heard that same voice croak back a mumbled "no…" that the Doctor realized the stranger was actually speaking.

Instantly startled, the Doctor snapped his head upright. The rest of his posture followed, jostling the other person in the process.

"Except that, maybe. I'm not so good with 'no's…" The Doctor tightened his grip with his left hand, cleared his throat into his right and gestured towards the TARDIS as he spoke. "Warning, I'm not perfect with this. No instant heaters. But I'll get you warmed up. Maybe some food, a nice game of jackstraws when we're done. You'll be fine as ever."

The stranger never turned his head to look. He hadn't even bothered to open his eyes, only his mouth in a struggle to protest. For the first few seconds, all that came out was a wheeze and a sputter, casting clouds of his breath into the air before he finally spoke in a muted panic. "No. You must leave."

"Sure thing. I'm doing that right now. Just got to get a better grip on your torso, and we'll be all set..." the Doctor tried to dismiss.

"Alone. As in the absence of my company."

The Doctor paused mid-step, unintentionally allowing the stranger to slip further from his grasp. The snow swirled around them, dusting over their previous path with a fresh scattering of snow. He struggled to adjust his grip by slipping his arm around and under the stranger's to anchor him upright. "I would, except, no, I wouldn't. Not really an option. Well, not a good one."

Though the stranger was obviously short of breath, he forced himself to speak once more, this time louder. "You've saved me oft enough. Surely, I've earned death…"

"You earned freezing in a snowbank? With no real context to speak of, or know, I'm going to take a mental leap and say that's not much of an earning process. It's more of an accidental stumbling. Or maybe a misguided happening-upon."

"Don't spite me with deceit. You remember," the stranger insisted with an odd conviction for someone who was both lying and hypothermic. It was a mismatch enough in tone to make the Doctor wonder if perhaps he wasn't lying.

For the second time too many, the Doctor paused. He lowered his right hand from the skyline to wave it at the stranger, beckoning him to explain in a way he couldn't possibly see. "Yes. Of course. Completely understandable, but, if you don't mind, or you do. What's your name, again?"

Whether it was from reluctance to speak or the strain of the weather on his clearly constricted lungs, there was a lengthy pause before the stranger could speak. The wind howled over his words, forcing the Doctor to lean his ear, and by extension the rest of him, directly towards the stranger's mouth. Even so, he could barely make out the slurred whisper of "Victor Frankenstein."

There was a small part of the Doctor which knew he should have questioned this, yet it was quickly overtaken by the epiphany of everything else. His arms tightened around the visibly uncomfortable, hypothermic body of his new acquaintance, brimming over with enthusiasm for what he'd just heard. His mind rushed ahead of his mouth, forming questions at twice the pace he could spew them.

"Oh. Oh! With the—Did you already—No, you did. Of course you did. You're here. In the snow. Getting rescued—Except then this should be nearing Russia. Wait. Why are you still in Switzerland?" the Doctor hardly made it to his third syllable before Victor's struggling came to a stop.

Victor's head collapsed against the Doctor's shoulder, and the rest of him followed suit, pressing against him like an over-sized rag doll filled with ice. The Doctor stumbled back, struggling and succeeding in picking Victor up.

"Oh, no, no, no, you definitely aren't dying, now." He hoisted Victor halfway up his shoulder, freed his right hand and snapped for his TARDIS. She vanished from her perch to approach his side. "C'mon, Old Girl. Over here. And fetch some hot chocolate! We've got a literary figure to save!"


End file.
